Real vs. Reel: Historical Goofs in 'Midway' (2019)

©2019 Midway Island Productions & Lionsgate Entertainment. Blu-ray cover art © 2020 Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate

Movies based on historical events, especially ones that depict real battles rather than just using them as the setting for a fictional story, have to strike a balance between telling an entertaining story that will keep audiences glued to their seats and being historically accurate. If a screenwriter emphasizes the elements that fall into the storytelling category - such as delving into a naval aviator's family life after war has been declared - the film can slip too much into soap opera territory. But if a script focuses too much on the historical details, then the average viewer with little to no interest in the minutiae of military operations will get bored.

Some of the best films about specific battles manage to find a happy medium between accuracy and pure entertainment. A Bridge Too Far, The Longest Day, and even the lesser-ranked Tora! Tora! Tora! get props for telling compelling and even poignant tales about famous battles of World War II. Battle of Britain, the 1969 film that tried to recreate the Luftwaffe's attempt to achieve aerial superiority over Great Britain in 1940 almost achieved its intention of being informative and entertaining, but its look at the private lives of at least two of the fictitious characters in Guy Hamilton's movie made it too soap-ish for my taste.

Director Roland Emmerich's Midway almost won me over with its earnest effort to depict the Battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942), the decisive carrier clash between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the U.S. Pacific Fleet that changed the direction of the war in the Pacific only six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In pre-release publicity, Lionsgate touted the fact that various naval historians, including Craig Symonds, said Midway was the most accurate depiction of a World War II naval battle made by a Hollywood studio.

Compared to Universal Pictures 1976 film of the same name, Emmerich's 2019 war epic (written by Wes Tooke) is a better recreation of what Capt. Mitsuo Fuchida (the aviator who led the Pearl Harbor aerial strike on December 7,1941) called "the battle that doomed Japan." But even though Midway gets many of the details right, it also has some glaring mistakes and omits important details that are crucial to understanding the real events.

So, what does Midway get wrong?

Aircraft Roundels and Fin Flashes 

Lt. Richard Best's SBD Dauntless as it appears in the December 7, 1941 sequence early in the film. 

Early on in Midway, director Roland Emmerich and his screenwriter Wes Tooke introduce one of the film's key heroes, Lt. Richard Halsey Best (Ed Skrain) in a nerve-racking scene in which Best practices a particularly difficult type of carrier landing on the USS Enterprise on the morning of December 7, 1941. Unaware that Japanese bombers are on their way to attack Pearl Harbor, Enterprise, her air group, and her escorts are returning to the navy base after a weeks-long patrol in the Pacific.

If you look closely at the screenshot from Midway, you'll notice that the national markings don't match those used by the U.S. military air services in 1941. Until the spring of 1942, the United States used tricolored roundels and fin flashes to aid in the identification of American Army, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft.

In December of 1941, a Douglas SBD onboard the USS Enterprise would have looked like this:

Douglas SBD in official U.S. Naval Aviation paint scheme used in late 1941 until early spring 1942. Note that the roundel includes a red "meatball" in the center of the star and the rudder sports red and white stripes. Source: warintheskies.com 

But in the movie Midway, all of the Navy planes seen in scenes set before May of 1942 are seen in their wartime low-visibility paint schemes and are configured with weapons that were not standard in 1941.

There Are No U.S. Fighters in the Midway Battle Scenes

Torpedo 8 attacks the Kido Butai, June 4, 1942. In this scene, no Wildcats would have been seen because they were too far above the low-level torpedo strike. But in the entire film, there are no Wildcats! 

At the Battle of Midway, as in every carrier engagement in the Pacific War, both sides employed air groups comprised of three or more "type" squadrons. A typical fleet carrier air wing of the United States Navy in 1942 and later would have a fighter (VF) squadron, a scouting/bombing (VS/VB) squadron, and a torpedo (VT) squadron. In the naval air doctrine of the time, the idea was that each carrier air group would launch a coordinated attack by all three squadrons.

F4F Wildcat in 1942 (Midway era) paint scheme. Source: warintheskies.com 

Now, due to various factors, including the slow airspeed of the obsolete TBD Devastators and lack of coordination between the different type squadrons, the Wildcat fighters of the Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown did not have their finest hour at Midway. The fighters assigned to provide air cover to the two U.S. task forces were more or less effective in their Combat Air Patrol (CAP role), although they were too few to prevent the two Japanese counterstrikes that led to the loss of Yorktown in the battle. The Wildcats that escorted the strikes against the Japanese carriers had mixed results; either they got into engagements with  Japanese interceptors on CAP over the Kido Butai, got lost on the infamous "Flight to Nowhere," or had communications issues that prevented them from aiding the doomed fliers of Torpedo Six and Eight.

Nevertheless, there were Wildcats present at Midway (and the other battles shown in the film). But Emmerich and his team show Navy air groups comprised solely of dive bombers and torpedo planes.

Furthermore, the movie ignores the gallant fighter pilots, most of them being Marine Corps aviatiors, who intercepted the Japanese air strike against Midway Island in the first air battle of June 4, 1942. They managed to shoot down several bombers and fighters before being savaged by the escorting Japanese Zero fighters.

The movie Midway will have you believe that the Japanese air strike flew over the American base unopposed in the air by U.S. fighters. In reality, Midway-based fighters shot down several enemy planes when the Japanese attack group was still some distance away from the island.   

The Omission of Key Personnel

Say what you will about Jack Smight's 1976 Midway, but even though it was a soggy mess that mixed history with some truly unnecessary plot padding and used mismatched footage from American, British, and Japanese war films, as well as actual combat footage from various (and mismatched) stages of the Pacific War, it tried its best to include the senior commanders who were present at the Battle of Midway. 

As a World War II buff who has read various books about the Battle of Midway, I can't understand why Wes Tooke, the writer of the 2019 Midway, decided to condense the entire pre-Midway period in the first hour or so of his script. This, plus the need to expand the roles of Lt. Cmdr. Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson) and Adm. Chester Nimitz (Woody Harrelson) more than necessary in such a relatively short film (Midway has a runtime of 138 minutes), caused serious problems in the narrative.

If you go into Midway with no prior knowledge about the battle, you will probably come away thinking that Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, USN, was in overall command of the three carriers that participated in the engagement. 

That would be incorrect. Spruance (played in the film by Jake Weber) commanded one of the two task forces (Task Force 16, to be precise) that ambushed the Japanese First Strike Force (or Kido Butai) on June 4, 1942. But overall command of the combined Pacific Fleet force was in the hands of Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, the commander of Task Force 17, centered on the carrier Yorktown. 

Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher after his post-Midway promotion. Official U.S. Navy photo. 

Now, I'm not a fan of the 1976 Midway, but I give the writers and casting director props for including Admiral Fletcher in its long list of characters. And although Glenn Ford (himself an officer in the Navy Reserves) did not look anything like Fletcher, he portrayed him as a competent commander who ceded command to Spruance after Task Force 17's flagship, USS Yorktown, was crippled by two Japanese airstrikes on June 4.

Emmerich's Midway does not mention Fletcher, not even in passing. His role in the battle, which was significant, is ignored, a casualty of Tooke's decision to cram five months' of pre-Midway actions on both sides. It makes Ray Spruance, who was junior to Fletcher and only took overall command at the latter's urging, look like he was the big honcho on the U.S. side at sea.

All in all, while Midway does depict the battle a bit more in line with what we know in the 21st Century, it still has plenty of historical goofs. Some are minor and excusable, but others are not. All of them could have been avoided with more attention to detail and careful research.

And, of course, a better script!